Last night, I tried to play a commercial DVD video on this box. The video just wouldn't start on Xine, so I loaded VLC. In VLC, it would start and run through the usual start-up ads but would just hang-up once the actual movie started and got past the opening credits. The computer was not locked up, I could close out of VLC and perform other functions, but retries would have the same results at the same point in the video. I DID also notice that the fan was running every time I tried this (computer setting flat on a table top) and was wondering about overheating issues, but again, the computer didn't lock up.

I then got out my much newer Compaq Presario dual core laptop which is currently loaded with Ubuntu 12.04. The first time I tried to load the video, I got a message that I was missing a restricted library. A quick Google search gave me a piece of code that I was able to copy and paste in the terminal and in just a few minutes, I had the video up and running on the Ubuntu box.

Today, I've been searching (both in this forum and on Google) for some line of code I could enter into my Puppy machine to make it work, but so far, no luck. The most I'm getting out of it is that most of the codecs should already be in place and commercial videos SHOULD play in Lucid 5.28. Anyone have any ideas?Edited_time_total

Multimedia playback. The default media player, Gnome-mplayer, is backed up by the larger and more elaborate Smplayer which is in Puppy Package Manager (PPM)--you should try Smplayer if you have any problems. Lucid Puppy also has the well-regarded VLC media player in the PPM which some people prefer. Click the 'Install' icon on the desktop and then the bottom entry for Puppy Package Manager. To play DVD's, XineDVD and Ogle are in the Puppy Package Manager.

Pentium III could be an issue.

The playback settings in the player may need tweaked.

For possibly better video change Video Output from X11 to Xv or XV to X11._________________I have found, in trying to help people, that the things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected

Here are the instructions I followed from the official Ubuntu tutorial:

"Install the libdvdread4 package (no need to add third party repositories) via Synaptic or command line: (note: if you have installed *ubuntu-restricted-extras this has already been installed automatically for you)

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
Then open a terminal window and execute:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh"

The "libdvdread4 package" was installed by default in my OS installation (restricted extras) However, I entered the command listed and it definitely executed, and after that I had full functionality in VLC in Ubuntu 12.04.

On the old Dell with Lucid Pup 5.28, VLC was installed out of Quickpet.

Have you tried changing the video output settings in VLC?_________________I have found, in trying to help people, that the things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected

Someplace in the VLC settings options will be a place to change the video output setting.

Not sure what VLC GUI you have. Look for some option to change settings.
Then find a place to change video output.

My VLC GUI looks like this:

VLC GUI.jpg

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_________________I have found, in trying to help people, that the things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected

Thanks Big Pup - I'll try that and report back. This obviously isn't critical as I have another laptop. The old Dell is just a test mule and I just like to push the limits occasionally. Every time I fail, I learn something, and so far, I've learned a lot...

Just thought I'd come back and close this out. After the holidays and some elderly in-law health issues, I got back to this and tried a couple of commercial DVD's in this box and they all played fine - no tweaking needed at all! It must have been an issue with that particular disk. It was a Disney release, so I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not. It did seem strange that it would work on my Ubuntu box and not on this one (both running VLC), but I'll gladly just chalk it up to serendipity. Thanks to all who weighed in.